SXSW's big winner: Natural Selection
Natural Selection took top narrative honors at SXSW--as well as just about all the other categories it could win, including the coveted audience favorite awards.
Synopsis:
Linda White, a barren Christian housewife, leads a sheltered existence in suburban Texas. Her world is turned upside-down when she discovers that her dying husband, Abe, has a 23-year old illegitimate son named Raymond living in Florida. Somewhere on the edge of guilt and loneliness, Linda grants Abe’s final wish and sets off on a quixotic journey to find Raymond and bring him back before her husband passes away. Along the way, Linda’s wonderfully bizarre relationship with Raymond will teach her more about herself than she ever imagined possible and force her to come to terms with her troubled past.
From the director, Richard Pickering:
“I always wanted to do a film about my mother, who is a fairly religious housewife in Jersey Village, Texas. I’ve rarely seen a person like her portrayed onscreen in anything besides a totally satirical light, and I wanted to do her character justice. The problem for me was coming up with an emotional window into her story. Then, late one night I got a call from my mom telling me that her husband (my stepfather) had stage four terminal kidney cancer. I was immediately overtaken by the knowledge that, for the first time in her life, my mother would soon be alone. I channeled all of that anxiety and worry into an odd story about a woman who is faced with the prospect of loneliness and death for the first time and goes to great lengths to escape that reality. It was a kind of therapy for me. Of course, nobody would ever know that the whole thing is about my stepfather’s death by watching the film. Tonally, the picture is accurate in its depiction of the strange feeling of grief that accompanies any death - the death of a relationship, the death of a loved one - and the sense of rebirth that often follows.”
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